To Obtain Documents About Facebook Data-Sharing, UK Gov't Seizes And Detains A US Executive Working For A Different Company
from the Parliamentary-street-gang dept
Something strange and disturbing happened in the UK this weekend. That it targeted pariah du jour Facebook doesn't make it any less bizarre or worrisome.
The short story is this: peeved at being blown off repeatedly by Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook representatives, members of Parliament shook down an American third party for documents possibly related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The long story -- broken by Carole Cadwalladr of The Guardian -- fills in the details.
But first a little background: Six4Three, developers of a scuzzy app that scanned profiles for bikini photos, is currently suing Facebook for yanking its API access. The lawsuit has traveled from the federal court system to a California state court, where Six4Three is hoping for a ruling declaring Facebook's actions to be a violation of various state-level competitive business laws.
During the course of this suit -- which was filed in January 2017 -- Six4Three has obtained internal Facebook documents through discovery. These documents may contain info related to Facebook's data-sharing and data-selling practices, which could possibly include its deals with Cambridge Analytica.
Somehow, members of Parliament found out one of Six4Three's lawyers execs was in London. So, this happened:
Damian Collins, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, invoked a rare parliamentary mechanism to compel the founder of a US software company, Six4Three, to hand over the documents during a business trip to London. In another exceptional move, parliament sent a serjeant at arms to his hotel with a final warning and a two-hour deadline to comply with its order. When the software firm founder failed to do so, it’s understood he was escorted to parliament. He was told he risked fines and even imprisonment if he didn’t hand over the documents.
Let's break this down: the UK government wants answers from Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Since Facebook hasn't been compliant, the UK government feels justified in taking documents obtained through discovery in a US lawsuit from an American lawyer currently suing Facebook… just because he happened to roam into its jurisdiction.
This is insane.
As an added twist, the documents the lawyer was forced to turn over are currently under seal. That means no one in the US other than the litigants and the judge have access to them. At least that was the case until Parliament's bizarre, heavy-handed move.
Facebook has responded with some fluff about Six4Three's creepy app (not really relevant) and a reminder that the documents seized from its opponent's lawyer are, at this point, privileged information. MP Collins has responded with a shrug, reminding Facebook's legal rep that the UK is not California so who cares what a local court has to say about who can see what documents.
It's unlikely the California court will find Six4Three's lawyer in contempt for being pretty much arrested and threatened with indefinite imprisonment if he didn't hand over documents it has ordered sealed. Facebook has asked that no members of Parliament view the documents until it has heard back from the California court. This has been greeted with a different kind of contempt:
Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.” Too late.
— Ian Lucas MP (@IanCLucas) November 25, 2018
If you can't read/see the tweet, it's from MP Ian Lucas and reads:
Facebook said: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook.” Too late.
Parliament may now have some of the answers Facebook has refused to provide. But was it worth it? The UK government acted more like an authoritarian dictatorship than a free country with this move. It detained a lawyer who didn't even work for Facebook and threatened him with jail time if he didn't turn over documents a judge in his home country had ordered sealed. The next few days should see some interesting iterations of the "ends justifies the means" pontificating from every Parliament member supportive of this damaging move.
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Filed Under: api, california, damian collins, due process, mark zuckerberg, privacy, sealed documents, uk, uk parliament
Companies: facebook, six4three
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"And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
In their short-sighted eagerness to get data that they apparently felt was 'owed' to them it seems the UK parliament might have just shot it's foot with regards to future cases involving the company.
By going after a third party because they were too toothless and/or gutless to challenge Facebook directly, followed by blatantly flaunting the fact that the documents in question are under seal in the US Facebook can argue that handing over any information to parliament risks having it spread elsewhere, as parliament clearly can't be trusted to show restraint or consider any legal or privacy issues involved in said information.
Not only do they come out looking all sorts of thuggish, but if they thought Facebook was stonewalling/ignoring them before they pulled this stunt I suspect they are not going to be happy with the stance Facebook is likely to take after it.
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Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
However, you just knew that a copy of these documents is in the possession of a third party, which happens to be on a visit in your capital. A nice opportunity to obtain those documents and investigate further.
I see no fundamental difference with seizing documents related to the inner workings of a drug cartel.
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Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
I think it shows desperation on the part of the UK parliament that they have resorted to this but the very fact they have shows how much they've struggled to get details from Facebook.
I just hope that this doesn't become a common practice.
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Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
What?! The "fact" that they have likely gone completely around their own laws and US law shows something? That's a little like saying "the fact that I was speeding shows how much I have struggled with inappropriate speed limits" or "the fact that I shot him shows how much I was in fear of my life".
Their actions do not provide any sort of evidence of anything except they are unwilling to wait for due process.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
US law is US law, that is an issue in the US and has no bearing on the actions of the UK parliament in the UK.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
expect that to come back and bite them when they're seeking a trade deal with the USA
Reading through the rather, er, high spirited discussions about this issue in the comments, it does seem like the pragmatic effects it may have (e.g. international trade, travel, business) are being given rather short shrift.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
And of course, I forgot to mention the (admittedly unlikely, slippery-slope) potential effect that keeps nagging at me anyway: if a US court issues an order that documents involved in a case are to be kept private, does that order now include a ban on international travel for all involved parties?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
What? I thought US law applied world-wide, subject to enforcement by military force if need be. Quick, someone ring up Noreiga's lawyers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Please cite chapter and verse of the law they went around.
The way I see it is that Parliament used a law that was originally intended to be used against non-cooperating nobility against a non-cooperating US company.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
History is more complex than that
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Lèse-majesté
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
A more general statement of the principle would be "the fact that I broke the law to do X shows how hard it is to do X without breaking the law".
Whether or not it *should* be hard to do X without breaking the law, or even hard to do X at all, is a completely separate question.
Your "speeding" analogy doesn't include an indication of what goal the speeding was intended to accomplish, so it doesn't map very well to the case at hand.
The "shot him" analogy could fit, in a form more like "the fact that I shot him in order to survive is an indication of how hard I found it to survive without shooting him" - although that example itself does show the limits of the principle, since people can and do indeed go to the extreme solution without even trying the less extreme ones first. (And that might well apply to the case at hand.)
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Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
That is what happened here.
"There is this US corporation which is known to infringe UK privacy laws on a large scale. "
Then just block Facebook in the country. Right?
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Maybe Europe could develop their own widely used social networking platform.
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Granted, it was just a title I saw, so take with a grain of salt.
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Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
How is that any different from what you lot do when you jail somebody forever for contempt of court until they are willing to turn over the password for their phone when they haven't been convicted for anything, regardless of the severity of their alleged crime?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Nope, nothing new here. That's the kind of thing that provoked Brexit1776. And the Crown's repeated abductions of US citizens was one of the reasons we bitch-slapped them in 1814.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
And for they opening act they attempted to invade Canada.
The result, they didn't obtain any Canadian territory and the white house got burned down.
For the US, it was a draw if you're being Generous.
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Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
I don't like that it happened but I recognize that it was lawful in that country for the government to do this.
I wonder what the cost to the UK will be though. Are less people going to visit, are other countries going to condemn the UK or will no one in positions of power really care?
My guess is this time around nothing will happen.
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Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
What does this say about your views on the First, Fourth, and Fifth amendments in general? "But ... the drugs!" is an excuse, like any other.
You don't get to break rights at will, without ending up with broken rights. For everyone.
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Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
If I had to choose between being subject to UK law and enforcement of such vs having my dick shoved in a killer bee hive, I'd have to ponder pretty hard which would be worse. And I'm allergic to bees.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Also we have a police force that usually deals with those in a mental health crisis as being ill, rather than dangerous,
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Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Until Brexit, UK Facebook users are, like all EU users, dealing with an Irish corporation. The UK government should be going after them.
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Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Watch this shifty bunch drag down everyone with it. Can't wait for upcoming episides!
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Re: Re: "And we should trust you THIS time why again?"
Fuck facebook indeed. However, this issue is about far more than just facebook. Your shortsightedness is evidence of what is wrong with politics in America today.
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Cutting off your nose to spite your neighbor
I really shouldn't have to explain this again...
Just because you hate the company does not mean you should be cheering on actions like this to 'get them', because if it's acceptable to do it to someone you hate, if it should happen to someone you like down the line you'll have no grounds to object unless you want to expose some great hypocrisy, and they'll have less grounds to fight back because 'we didn't get any objections when we did it to them, we're just doing the same thing to you now.'
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It helps if you get the small details right
By the way, did you not find it strange that the founder (not the lawyer) of the company was visiting London and carrying these documents with him? I guess not.
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Re: It helps if you get the small details right
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Re: Re: It helps if you get the small details right
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Re: Re: Re: It helps if you get the small details right
Why would he have been carrying those?
And the corollary, how would Parliament have known he had them with him?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: It helps if you get the small details right
They see you when you're sleeping, they know when you're awake...
Expect some kind of tie-in to Santa Claus lore in the future, when this is going to be presented as benevolent and not in the least bit as creepy as Hell.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: It helps if you get the small details right
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Given the alternative that comes to mind, that he's a grossly irresponsible lawyer that regularly talks about sealed legal documents that he's carrying, I can't help but see your scenario as being all too feasible.
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Re: It helps if you get the small details right
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Re: It helps if you get the small details right
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Re: It helps if you get the small details right
Till now, as long as you didn't carry the documents across the border, you were mostly considered safe when working in a non-dictatorship. Some lawyers and businesspeople would wipe laptops before crossing the border, then restore over the internet, work on some stuff, upload it, wipe again and go home.
In the future it may indeed be considered strange to carry them. To start, US courts might forbid sealed documents from being taken/accessed outside the US—or even forbid anyone outside the US having the capability to access them. I.e., if a lawyer's going to travel, their network access rights to those documents would be restricted so they couldn't access them even if forced.
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Holy shit
This is nearly an act of war.
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Re: Holy shit
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Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Holy shit
Mind you... https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/trump-accuses-google-of-rigging-search-results-in-favor-of-bad-cover age.html
I bet he'd high-five Theresa May for this.
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Re: Re: Re: Holy shiitake
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Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
Let me help you out here
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Holy shit
I guess he was lucky the UK didn't go full Khashoggi on him.
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Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
this is detaining a free person
Those words do not mean what you think they mean.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re: Re: Re: Holy shit
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Re:
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Go Merika!!!
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There's your tech dirt, and the reason I posted the link to the insider chat.
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Re:
From The Guardian: "Six4Three alleges the cache shows Facebook was not only aware of the implications of its privacy policy, but actively exploited them, intentionally creating and effectively flagging up the loophole that Cambridge Analytica used to collect data."
I've read this a bunch and it kinda sounds like... a reporter and politicians not understanding Facebook's API.
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Re: Re:
How so?
An API is for programmers. Why should any user of Facebook be expected to know or understand it?
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Re: Re: Re:
If that user happens to be a journalist writing an article about the Facebook API, then they should learn enough about the API to describe it accurately.
A reporter describing an API need not be a programmer, any more than a reporter describing a black hole need be an astrophysicist, a reporter describing a criminal trial need be a lawyer, or a reporter on city planning need be a civil engineer. If you're reporting on those subjects, you don't need to be an expert on them. But you should know enough to accurately describe them in terms that your audience can understand.
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You got to this remarkably fast.
Nothing gets Techdirt alarmed like emerging Truth of what globalist corporations are doing out of sight.
The minion gets into a snit based on A) false assertion that corporations have rights, but they don't, and B) that Parliament / gov't don't have authority (from "natural" persons) to investigate the merely fictional corporations, but they DO, and should be used more often like this.
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Re: You got to this remarkably fast.
Because of-fucking-course.
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Re: Re: You got to this remarkably fast.
What the hell does this even mean?
Damn crazy shite.
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How certain were they that he could comply?
My first thought on reading this was the dangerous similarity to "We have this drive that appears to be encrypted. We believe you know the password to decrypt it. You cannot convince us of your ignorance. Tell us the password or be convicted."
Even ignoring all the serious legal issues with how they did this, it sets a terrible precedent for creating unwinnable scenarios. What would have happened if he didn't have the ability to readily provide the documents they demanded? For example, if the only copy was stored in a wall safe in his home in the U.S., would they take the position that he needs to order someone to go break into his home and open the safe to retrieve the documents? What if the court had ordered the documents be made available to him, but the court clerk had not yet done so, so he had not read the documents yet and had no copies which he could provide? Would they argue that it's his duty to call up the court clerk, explain that the sealed documents need to be sent to him unsealed so that he can be released from detention, and then hope the court clerk went along with such a bizarre claim?
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Sooooo
How will this work with US government mandated back doors? Especially if in all computers? And what happens if laws are passed that say you have to give the passwords or fined?
Where would WTO or courts come down? After all, having access to back doors would be security issue for all governments....
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Double or triple standards
Then there is the whole concept that the Cambridge Analitica is about privacy, and the method to enhance their position is to abuse someone else's privacy?
Finally, this was an act of Parliament, apparently, and not the UK government as a whole, or the prosecutorial portion of the UK government. Is there some sort of plausible deniability going on here?
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Re: Double or triple standards
I suspect it's as simple as 'Because Facebook can fight back'. If they did this to one of Facebook's lawyers you can be damn sure that they would be facing some hefty legal action backed by a company with more than enough resources to make them regret it.
A lawyer from a much smaller company on the other hand...
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The saddest thing
That Facebook had a broad and overreaching API was [known in 2011](https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/24/facebook-was-warned-about-app-permissions-in-2011/). Only developers really cared when they started shuttering it in 2014 (hence the Six4Three lawsuit), until Cambridge Analytica gave politicians political cover to investigate it.
I suppose the British parliament probably has broad authority to get these documents (perhaps they are explosive). However, it's troubling that they felt they needed to extort a Six4Three lawyer to get them.
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Re: The saddest thing
Getting the documents is dicey at best I mean the CEO may have wanted to leak them as people are suggesting because really he had an out. I doubt he carried them in his hands, and as sealed documents I would believe they were only shared with his Lawyers. His lawyers are under court orders to prevent their release. A simple my lawyer wont give it to me should end the UK's push for it. I mean if he doesn't have them he can't give them...
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The guy is a Lawyer?
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Re: The guy is a Lawyer?
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What happens when Congress subpoenas documents?
Congress can compel production of documents, just as was done here.
Don't take documents abroad if you don't want anyone to read them.
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... from the wrong party.
Did you read the article? The problem wasn't that they demanded documents. The problem was that they demanded documents from a third party because they were too gutless to demand them from Facebook, so instead they went after someone else who was carrying what they wanted and forced them to provide said documents or face penalties for refusing.
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Re: ... from the wrong party.
I'm not big on tinfoil hats but this is all a little too convenient.
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Re: Re: ... from the wrong party.
Barring further evidence to support the idea though it remains nothing more than a possibility.
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And the Prize goes to Tim !
pariah du jour, bikini, scuzzy, UK parliament, California state court, serjeant at arms, happened to roam into its jurisdiction, too late and threatened with indefinite imprisonment.
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